Making the grade in Madison with a new high school (editorial)

Madison's new James Clemens High School is scheduled to open in time for the 2012-13 school year. (The Huntsville Times/Eric Schultz)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama _ The City of Madison crossed a major growth milestone Monday with the setting of zone lines and the hiring of a head football coach and band director for its new high school.

With those decisions set, Madison is well on its way to opening the new James Clemens High School next fall.

School officials now face the huge task of establishing the curriculum, building a faculty, remapping bus routes, equipping the school - even deciding a school mascot.

Although growth projections in some elementary school zones show a need for it, Madison Schools Superintendent Dr. Dee Fowler wisely made the decision to forego elementary school rezoning to focus only on dividing the high schools.

Elementary school rezonings (the school system has undergone six since Madison formed its own school system in the mid-1990s) will be tomorrow's battles.

So will the potentially stormy decision on whether to substitute a 6-mill property tax for the half-percent sales tax imposed in 2010 to build the new school. A 6-mill levy would add $60 a year for each $100,000 value of a home. A half-percent sales tax generates $60 per year on households that spend $1,000 per month on food and other taxed goods or $120 annually for $2,000 per month in spending.

The new high school will add $1 million in operating costs to the school system's overall operating budget.

A second high school for Madison is long overdue. Madison City Schools enrollment now stands at about 8,800 students, with 2,285 in Bob Jones spread across just three grades.

A second high school will enable the school system to put 9th grades into each high school and leave middle schools with only 7th and 8th grades. An earlier proposal to shift 6th graders into the middle schools was scrapped.

A challenge for school leaders will be providing students at each high school equal access to course offerings, varsity sports, advanced placement classes and electives such as band and choral.

The board may need to assign teachers who would float between schools until full enrollment is attained at James Clemens.

The grade configuration plan calls for James Clemens to open with a full 9th and 10th grade. Entering juniors in the James Clemens zone would have the "option" of remaining at Bob Jones. If enough Bob Jones seniors in the James Clemens zone opt to move, the new school would also open with a 12th grade.

Madison endured a bumpy path in the run-up to increasing the sales tax to pay for the new high school. More hurdles lie ahead if enrollment continues to rise at its current pace. The public and school board must work through these growing pains together.